Harvard graduates Rob Biederman and Patrick Petitti have crafted a solution to your over-educated-and-underemployed problem.
Dubbed the “Uber for MBAs” by the Boston Globe’s Scott Kirsner, online consulting hub HourlyNerd applies the same sharing economy principles underpinning Uber and TaskRabbit to white collar jobs.
Class project turned million-dollar company
The Boston-based startup, which began as a class project at the Harvard Business School in 2013, has since garnered 22,000 MBA-holding consultants from our nation’s most prestigious colleges, multinational clients like Microsoft and roughly $10 million in funding.
The company now bills themselves as the “same quality as the top consulting firms for a fraction of the price.”
Compared to traditional consulting firms like McKinsey & Co and PwC, resources like HourlyNerd and its London-based rival MBA & Co. offer speed, flexibility and affordability. The “nerds” have an average of eight years of work experience and a 99.2 percent business satisfaction rate, according to HourlyNerd’s website.
While it may seem odd to farm out important tasks like business development to strangers on the Internet, the former CEO of Upwork Gary Swart sees it as a natural progression of the e-commerce business model.
“In the early days of e-commerce, we were comfortable buying a book from Amazon and a PEZ dispenser with eBay, but as e-commerce has evolved, now we’re comfortable transacting automobiles, real estate, rolex watches,” said Swart to Kirsner.
“I think the world of work is not dissimilar. In the early days, we’re comfortable with someone designing a logo, writing copy or doing some website coding. But why not a lawyer, an accountant, a strategic consultant?”
A proven competitive edge
Like Uber and Lyft before them, HourlyNerd is an industry “disrupter” that poses a legitimate threat to traditional consulting firms – especially when it comes to talent acquisition.
“Consulting careers are known for long hours and endless travel,” writes Marketplace’s Mark Garrison. “Top graduates these days think very differently about work-life balance, so they may not find consulting worth the tradeoffs, especially when their skills are in demand at growing tech companies with lavish perks.”
If HourlyNerd continues to follow Uber’s path, they are unlikely to be pushed out by traditional businesses, especially in the absence of a controversial regulatory and political battle.
If anything, the success of HourlyNerd represents a lasting shift in workplace culture that prioritizes flexibility and working remotely.
Carlos Castelán, a consultant on HourlyNerd with a Harvard MBA, strayed from the beaten path of traditional consulting after graduating from business school and never looked back. He now makes more than first year-consultant would at a major firm, and can actually choose the projects he works on and where and when he travels.
“It would be very tough for me to go to a big company at this point,” said Castelán. “Having a family is very important to both my wife and me, so that travel element really is difficult to manage.”
Our take
HourlyNerd adds to the growing list of startup companies that pose a threat to traditional industries and business models. As we adjust to our burgeoning tech-based economy, we’ll likely see more alternatives for underemployed and indebted college grads arise in the process.
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